Antonina; Or The Fall of Rome Read online

  CHAPTER 1.

  GOISVINTHA.

  The mountains forming the range of Alps which border on thenorth-eastern confines of Italy, were, in the autumn of the year 408,already furrowed in numerous directions by the tracks of the invadingforces of those northern nations generally comprised under theappellation of Goths.

  In some places these tracks were denoted on either side by fallentrees, and occasionally assumed, when half obliterated by the ravagesof storms, the appearance of desolate and irregular marshes. In otherplaces they were less palpable. Here, the temporary path was entirelyhidden by the incursions of a swollen torrent; there, it was faintlyperceptible in occasional patches of soft ground, or partly traceableby fragments of abandoned armour, skeletons of horses and men, andremnants of the rude bridges which had once served for passage across ariver or transit over a precipice.

  Among the rocks of the topmost of the range of mountains immediatelyoverhanging the plains of Italy, and presenting the last barrier to theexertions of a traveller or the march of an invader, there lay, at thebeginning of the fifth century, a little lake. Bounded on three sidesby precipices, its narrow banks barren of verdure or habitations, andits dark and stagnant waters brightened but rarely by the presence ofthe lively sunlight, this solitary spot--at all timesmournful--presented, on the autumn of the day when our story commences,an aspect of desolation at once dismal to the eye and oppressive to theheart.

  It was near noon; but no sun appeared in the heaven. The dull clouds,monotonous in colour and form, hid all beauty in the firmament, andshed heavy darkness on the earth. Dense, stagnant vapours clung to themountain summits; from the drooping trees dead leaves and rottenbranches sunk, at intervals, on the oozy soil, or whirled over thegloomy precipice; and a small steady rain fell, slow andunintermitting, upon the deserts around. Standing upon the path whicharmies had once trodden, and which armies were still destined to tread,and looking towards the solitary lake, you heard, at first, no soundbut the regular dripping of the rain-drops from rock to rock; you sawno prospect but the motionless waters at your feet, and the dusky cragswhich shadowed them from above. When, however, impressed by themysterious loneliness of the place, the eye grew more penetrating andthe ear more attentive, a cavern became apparent in the precipicesround the lake; and, in the intervals of the heavy rain-drops, werefaintly perceptible the sounds of a human voice.

  The mouth of the cavern was partly concealed by a large stone, on whichwere piled some masses of rotten brushwood, as if for the purpose ofprotecting any inhabitant it might contain from the coldness of theatmosphere without. Placed at the eastward boundary of the lake, thisstrange place of refuge commanded a view not only of the rugged pathimmediately below it, but of a large plot of level ground at a shortdistance to the west, which overhung a second and lower range of rocks.From this spot might be seen far beneath, on days when the atmospherewas clear, the olive grounds that clothed the mountain's base, andbeyond, stretching away to the distant horizon, the plains of fatedItaly, whose destiny of defeat and shame was now hastening to its darkand fearful accomplishment.

  The cavern, within, was low and irregular in form. From its ruggedwalls the damp oozed forth upon its floor of decayed moss. Lizards andnoisome animals had tenanted its comfortless recesses undisturbed,until the period we have just described, when their miserable rightswere infringed on for the first time by human intruders.

  A woman crouched near the entrance of the place. More within, on thedriest part of the ground, lay a child asleep. Between them werescattered some withered branches and decayed leaves, which werearranged as if to form a fire. In many parts this scanty collection offuel was slightly blackened; but, wetted as it was by the rain, allefforts to light it permanently had evidently been fruitless.

  The woman's head was bent forwards, and her face, hid in her hands,rested on her knees. At intervals she muttered to herself in a hoarse,moaning voice. A portion of her scanty clothing had been removed tocover the child. What remained on her was composed, partly of skins ofanimals, partly of coarse cotton cloth. In many places this miserabledress was marked with blood, and her long, flaxen hair bore upon itsdishevelled locks the same ominous and repulsive stain.

  The child seemed scarcely four years of age, and showed on his pale,thin face all the peculiarities of his Gothic origin. His featuresseemed to have been once beautiful, both in expression and form; but adeep wound, extending the whole length of his cheek, had now deformedhim for ever. He shivered and trembled in his sleep, and every now andthen mechanically stretched forth his little arms towards the dead coldbranches that were scattered before him.

  Suddenly a large stone became detached from the rock in a distant partof the cavern, and fell noisily to the ground. At this sound he wokewith a scream--raised himself--endeavoured to advance towards thewoman, and staggered backward against the side of the cave. A secondwound in the leg had wreaked that destruction on his vigour which thefirst had effected on his beauty. He was a cripple.

  At the instant of his awakening the woman had started up. She nowraised him from the ground, and taking some herbs from her bosom,applied them to his wounded cheek. By this action her dress becamediscomposed: it was stiff at the top with coagulated blood, which hadevidently flowed from a cut in her neck.

  All her attempts to compose the child were in vain; he moaned and weptpiteously, muttering at intervals his disjointed exclamations ofimpatience at the coldness of the place and the agony of his recentwounds. Speechless and tearless the wretched woman looked vacantlydown on his face. There was little difficulty in discerning from thatfixed, distracted gaze the nature of the tie that bound the mourningwoman to the suffering boy. The expression of rigid and awful despairthat lowered in her fixed, gloomy eyes, the livid paleness thatdiscoloured her compressed lips, the spasms that shook her firm,commanding form, mutely expressing in the divine eloquence of humanemotion that between the solitary pair there existed the most intimateof earth's relationships--the connection of mother and child.

  For some time no change occurred in the woman's demeanour. At last, asif struck by some sudden suspicion, she rose, and clasping the child inone arm, displaced with the other the brushwood at the entrance of herplace of refuge, cautiously looking forth on all that the mists leftvisible of the western landscape. After a short survey she drew backas if reassured by the unbroken solitude of the place, and turningtowards the lake, looked down upon the black waters at her feet.

  'Night has succeeded to night,' she muttered gloomily, 'and has broughtno succour to my body, and no hope to my heart! Mile on mile have Ijourneyed, and danger is still behind, and loneliness for ever before.The shadow of death deepens over the boy; the burden of anguish growsweightier than I can bear. For me, friends are murdered, defenders aredistant, possessions are lost. The God of the Christian priests hasabandoned us to danger and deserted us in woe. It is for me to end thestruggle for us both. Our last refuge has been in this place--oursepulchre shall be here as well!'

  With one last look at the cold and comfortless sky, she advanced to thevery edge of the lake's precipitous bank. Already the child was raisedin her arms, and her body bent to accomplish successfully the fatalspring, when a sound in the east--faint, distant, and fugitive--caughther ear. In an instant her eye brightened, her chest heaved, her cheekflushed. She exerted the last relics of her wasted strength to gain aprominent position upon a ledge of the rocks behind her, and waited inan agony of expectation for a repetition of that magic sound.

  In a moment more she heard it again--for the child, stupefied withterror at the action that had accompanied her determination to plungewith him into the lake, now kept silence, and she could listenundisturbed. To unpractised ears the sound that so entranced her wouldhave been scarcely audible. Even the experienced traveller would havethought it nothing more than the echo of a fallen stone among the rocksin the eastward distance. But to her it was no unimportant sound, forit gave the welcome signal of deliverance and delig
ht.

  As the hour wore on, it came nearer and nearer, tossed about by thesportive echoes, and now clearly betraying that its origin was, as shehad at first divined, the note of the Gothic trumpet. Soon the distantmusic ceased, and was succeeded by another sound, low and rumbling, asof an earthquake afar off or a rising thunderstorm, and changing, erelong, to a harsh confused noise, like the rustling of a mighty windthrough whole forests of brushwood.

  At this instant the woman lost all command over herself; her formerpatience and caution deserted her; reckless of danger, she placed thechild upon the ledge on which she had been standing; and, thoughtrembling in every limb, succeeded in mounting so much higher on thecrag as to gain a fissure near the top of the rock, which commanded anuninterrupted view of the vast tracts of uneven ground leading in aneasterly direction to the next range of precipices and ravines.

  One after another the long minutes glided on, and, though much wasstill audible, nothing was yet to be seen. At length the shrill soundof the trumpet again rang through the dull, misty air, and the nextinstant the advance guard of an army of Goths emerged from the distantwoods.

  Then, after an interval, the multitudes of the main body throngedthrough every outlet in the trees, and spread in dusky masses over thedesert ground that lay between the woods and the rocks about theborders of the lake. The front ranks halted, as if to communicate withthe crowds of the rearguard and the stragglers among the baggagewaggons, who still poured forth, apparently in interminable hosts, fromthe concealment of the distant trees. The advanced troops, evidentlywith the intention of examining the roads, still marched rapidly on,until they gained the foot of the ascent leading to the crags to whichthe woman still clung, and from which, with eager attention, she stillwatched their movements.

  Placed in a situation of the extremest peril, her strength was her onlypreservative against the danger of slipping from her high and narrowelevation. Hitherto the moral excitement of expectation had given herthe physical power necessary to maintain her position; but just as theleaders of the guard arrived at the cavern, her over-wrought energiessuddenly deserted her; her hands relaxed their grasp; she tottered, andwould have sunk backwards to instant destruction, had not the skinswrapped about her bosom and waist become entangled with a point of oneof the jagged rocks immediately around her. Fortunately--for she couldutter no cry--the troops halted at this instant to enable their horsesto gain breath. Two among them at once perceived her position anddetected her nation. They mounted the rocks; and, while one possessedhimself of the child, the other succeeded in rescuing the mother andbearing her safely to the ground.

  The snorting of horses, the clashing of weapons, the confusion of loud,rough voices, which now startled the native silence of the solitarylake, and which would have bewildered and overwhelmed most persons inthe woman's exhausted condition, seemed, on the contrary, to reassureher feelings and reanimate her powers. She disengaged herself from herpreserver's support, and taking her child in her arms, advanced towardsa man of gigantic stature, whose rich armour sufficiently announcedthat his position in the army was one of command.

  'I am Goisvintha,' said she, in a firm, calm voice--'sister toHermanric. I have escaped from the massacre of the hostages ofAquileia with one child. Is my brother with the army of the king?'

  This declaration produced a marked change in the bystanders. The looksof indifference or curiosity which they had at first cast on thefugitive, changed to the liveliest expression of wonder and respect.The chieftain whom she had addressed raised the visor of his helmet soas to uncover his face, answered her question in the affirmative, andordered two soldiers to conduct her to the temporary encampment of themain army in the rear. As she turned to depart, an old man advanced,leaning on his long, heavy sword, and accosted her thus--

  'I am Withimer, whose daughter was left hostage with the Romans inAquileia. Is she of the slain or of the escaped?'

  'Her bones rot under the city walls,' was the answer. 'The Romans madeof her a feast for the dogs.'

  No word or tear escaped the old warrior. He turned in the direction ofItaly; but, as he looked downwards towards the plains, his browlowered, and his hands tightened mechanically round the hilt of hisenormous weapon.

  The same gloomy question was propounded to Goisvintha by the two menwho guided her to the army that had been asked by their aged comrade.It received the same terrible answer, which was borne with the samestern composure, and followed by the same ominous glance in thedirection of Italy, as in the instance of the veteran Withimer.

  Leading the horse that carried the exhausted woman with the utmostcare, and yet with wonderful rapidity, down the paths which they had sorecently ascended, the men in a short space of time reached the placewhere the army had halted, and displayed to Goisvintha, in all themajesty of numbers and repose, the vast martial assemblage of thewarriors of the North.

  No brightness gleamed from their armour; no banners waved over theirheads; no music sounded among their ranks. Backed by the dreary woods,which still disgorged unceasing additions to the warlike multitudealready encamped; surrounded by the desolate crags which showed dim,wild, and majestic through the darkness of the mist; covered with thedusky clouds which hovered motionless over the barren mountain tops,and poured their stormy waters on the uncultivated plains--all that theappearance of the Goths had of solemnity in itself was in awful harmonywith the cold and mournful aspect that the face of Nature had assumed.Silent--menacing--dark,--the army looked the fit embodiment of itsleader's tremendous purpose--the subjugation of Rome.

  Conducting Goisvintha quickly through the front files of warriors, herguides, pausing at a spot of ground which shelved upwards at rightangles with the main road from the woods, desired her to dismount; andpointing to the group that occupied the place, said, 'Yonder is Alaricthe king, and with him is Hermanric thy brother.'

  At whatever point of view it could have been regarded, the assemblageof persons thus indicated to Goisvintha must have arrested inattentionitself. Near a confused mass of weapons, scattered on the ground,reclined a group of warriors apparently listening to the low, mutteredconversation of three men of great age, who rose above them, seated onpieces of rock, and whose long white hair, rough skin dresses, and leantottering forms appeared in strong contrast with the iron-clad andgigantic figures of their auditors beneath. Above the old men, on thehighroad, was one of Alaric's waggons; and on the heaps of baggagepiled against its clumsy wheels had been chosen resting-place of thefuture conqueror of Rome. The top of the vehicle seemed absolutelyteeming with a living burden. Perched in every available nook andcorner were women and children of all ages, and weapons and live stockof all varieties. Now, a child--lively, mischievous,inquisitive--peered forth over the head of a battering-ram. Now, alean, hungry sheep advanced his inquiring nostrils sadly to the openair, and displayed by the movement the head of a withered old womanpillowed on his woolly flanks. Here, appeared a young girl struggling,half entombed in shields. There, gasped an emaciated camp-follower,nearly suffocated in heaps of furs. The whole scene, with itsbackground of great woods, drenched in a vapour of misty rain, with itsstriking contrasts at one point and its solemn harmonies at another,presented a vast combination of objects that either startled or awed--agloomy conjunction of the menacing and the sublime.

  Bidding Goisvintha wait near the waggon, one of her conductorsapproached and motioned aside a young man standing near the king. Asthe warrior rose to obey the demand, he displayed, with all thephysical advantages of his race, and ease and elasticity of movementunusual among the men of his nation. At the instant when he joined thesoldier who had accosted him, his face was partially concealed by animmense helmet, crowned with a boar's head, the mouth of which, forcedopen at death, gaped wide, as if still raging for prey. But the manhad scarcely stated his errand, when he started violently, removed thegrim appendage of war, and hastened bare-headed to the side of thewaggon where Goisvintha awaited his approach.

  The instant he was beheld
by the woman, she hastened to meet him;placed the wounded child in his arms, and greeted him with thesewords:--

  'Your brother served in the armies of Rome when our people were atpeace with the Empire. Of his household and his possessions this is allthat the Romans have left!'

  She ceased, and for an instant the brother and sister regarded eachother in touching and expressive silence. Though, in addition to thegeneral characteristics of country, the countenances of the twonaturally bore the more particular evidences of community of blood, allresemblance between them at this instant--so wonderful is the power ofexpression over feature--had utterly vanished. The face and manner ofthe young man (he had numbered only twenty years) expressed a deepsorrow, manly in its stern tranquility, sincere in its perfectinnocence of display. As he looked on the child, his blueeyes--bright, piercing, and lively--softened like a woman's; his lips,hardly hidden by his short beard, closed and quivered; and his chestheaved under the armour that lay upon its noble proportions. There wasin this simple, speechless, tearless melancholy--this exquisiteconsideration of triumphant strength for suffering weakness--somethingalmost sublime; opposed as it was to the emotions of malignity anddespair that appeared in Goisvintha's features. The ferocity thatgleamed from her dilated, glaring eyes, the sinister markings thatappeared round her pale and parted lips, the swelling of the largeveins, drawn to their extremest point of tension on her lofty forehead,so distorted her countenance, that the brother and sister, as theystood together, seemed in expression to have changed sexes for themoment. From the warrior came pity for the sufferer; from the mother,indignation for the offence.

  Arousing himself from his melancholy contemplation of the child, and asyet answering not a word to Goisvintha, Hermanric mounted the waggon,and placing the last of his sister's offspring in the arms of adecrepid old woman, who sat brooding over some bundles of herbs spreadout upon her lap, addressed her thus:--

  'These wounds are from the Romans. Revive the child, and you shall berewarded from the spoils of Rome.'

  'Ha! ha! ha!' chuckled the crone; 'Hermanric is an illustrious warrior,and shall be obeyed. Hermanric is great, for his arm can slay; butBrunechild is greater than he, for her cunning can cure!'

  As if anxious to verify this boast before the warrior's eyes, the oldwoman immediately began the preparation of the necessary dressings fromher store of herbs; but Hermanric waited not to be a witness of herskill. With one final look at the pale, exhausted child, he slowlydescended from the waggon, and approaching Goisvintha, drew her towardsa sheltered position near the ponderous vehicle. Here he seatedhimself by her side, prepared to listen with the deepest attention toher recital of the scenes of terror and suffering through which she hadso recently passed.

  'You,' she began, 'born while our nation was at peace; transported fromthe field of war to those distant provinces where tranquility stillprevailed; preserved throughout your childhood from the chances ofbattle; advanced to the army in your youth, only when its toils arepast and its triumphs are already at hand--you alone have escaped themiseries of our people, to partake in the glory of their approachingrevenge.

  'Hardly had a year passed since you had been removed from thesettlements of the Goths when I wedded Priulf. The race of triflers towhom he was then allied, spite of their Roman haughtiness, deferred tohim in their councils, and confessed among their legions that he wasbrave. I saw myself with joy the wife of a warrior of renown; Ibelieved, in my pride, that I was destined to be the mother of a raceof heroes; when suddenly there came news to us that the EmperorTheodosius was dead. Then followed anarchy among the people of thesoil, and outrages on the liberties of their allies, the Goths. Erelong the call to arms arose among our nation. Soon our waggons of warwere rolled across the frozen Danube; our soldiers quitted the Romancamp; our husbandmen took their weapons from their cottage walls; wethat were women prepared with our children to follow our husbands tothe field; and Alaric, the king, came forth as the leader of our hosts.

  'We marched upon the territories of the Greeks. But how shall I tellyou of the events of those years of war that followed our invasion; ofthe glory of our victories; of the hardships of our defences; of themiseries of our retreats; of the hunger that we vanquished; of thediseases that we endured; of the shameful peace that was finallyratified, against the wishes of our king! How shall I tell of allthis, when my thoughts are on the massacre from which I have justescaped--when these first evils, though once remembered in anguish,are, even now, forgotten in the superior horrors that ensued!

  'The truce was made. Alaric departed with the remnant of his army, andencamped at AEmona, on the confines of that land which he had alreadyinvaded, and which he is now prepared to conquer. Between our king andStilicho, the general of the Romans, passed many messages, for theleaders disputed on the terms of the peace that should be finallyordained. Meanwhile, as an earnest of the Gothic faith, bands of ourwarriors, and among them Priulf, were despatched into Italy to beallies once more of the legions of Rome, and with them they took theirwives and their children, to be detained as hostages in the citiesthroughout the land.

  'I and my children were conducted to Aquileia. In a dwelling withinthe city we were lodged with our possessions. It was night when I tookleave of Priulf, my husband, at the gates. I watched him as hedeparted with the army, and, when the darkness hid him from my eyes, Ire-entered the town; from which I am the only woman of our nation whohas escaped alive.'

  As she pronounced these last words, Goisvintha's manner, which hadhitherto been calm and collected, began to change: she paused abruptlyin her narrative, her head sunk upon her breast, her frame quivered asif convulsed with violent agony. When she turned towards Hermanricafter an interval of silence to address him again, the same malignantexpression lowered over her countenance that had appeared on it whenshe presented to him her wounded child; her voice became broken,hoarse, and unfeminine; and pressing closely to the young man's side,she laid her trembling fingers on his arm, as if to bespeak his mostundivided attention.

  'Time grew on,' she continued, 'and still there came no tidings thatthe peace was finally secured. We, that were hostages, lived separatefrom the people of the town; for we felt enmity towards each other eventhen. In my captivity there was no employment for me but patience--nopursuit but hope. Alone with my children, I was wont to look forthover the sea towards the camp of our king; but day succeeded to day,and his warriors appeared not on the plains; nor did Priulf return withthe legions to encamp before the gates of the town. So I mourned in myloneliness; for my heart yearned towards the homes of my people; Ilonged once more to look upon my husband's face, and to behold againthe ranks of our warriors, and the majesty of their battle array.

  'But already, when the great day of despair was quickly drawing near, abitter outrage was preparing for me alone. The men who had hithertowatched us were changed, and of the number of the new guards was onewho cast on me the eyes of lust. Night after night he poured hisentreaties into my unwilling ear; for, in his vanity and shamelessness,he believed that I, who was Gothic and the wife of a Goth, might be wonby him whose parentage was but Roman! Soon from prayers he rose tothreats; and one night, appearing before me with smiles, he cried outthat Stilicho, whose desire was to make peace with the Goths, hadsuffered, for his devotion to our people, the penalty of death; that atime of ruin was approaching for us all, and that he alone--whom Idespised--could preserve me from the anger of Rome. As he ceased heapproached me; but I, who had been in many battle-fields, felt no dreadat the prospect of war, and I spurned him with laughter from mypresence.

  'Then, for a few nights more, my enemy approached me not again. Untilone evening, as I sat on the terrace before the house, with the childthat you have beheld, a helmet-crest suddenly fell at my feet, and avoice cried to me from the garden beneath: 'Priulf thy husband hasbeen slain in a quarrel by the soldiers of Rome! Already the legionswith whom he served are on their way to the town; for a massacre of thehostages is ordained. Speak but
the word, and I can save thee evenyet!'

  'I looked on the crest. It was bloody, and it was his! For an instantmy heart writhed within me as I thought on my warrior whom I had loved!Then, as I heard the messenger of death retire, cursing, from hislurking-place in the garden, I recollected that now my children hadnone but their mother to defend them, and that peril was preparing forthem from the enemies of their race. Besides the little one in myarms, I had two that were sleeping in the house. As I looked round,bewildered and in despair, to see if a chance were left us to escape,there rang through the evening stillness the sound of a trumpet, andthe tramp of armed men was audible in the street beneath. Then, fromall quarters of the town rose, as one sudden sound, the shrieks ofwomen and the yells of men. Already, as I rushed towards my children'sbeds, the fiends of Rome had mounted the stairs, and waved in bloodytriumph their reeking swords! I gained the steps; and, as I looked up,they flung down at me the body of my youngest child. O Hermanric!Hermanric! it was the most beautiful and the most beloved! What thepriests say that God should be to us, that, the fairest one of myoffspring, was to me! As I saw it mutilated and dead--I, who but anhour before had hushed it on my bosom to rest!--my courage forsook me,and when the murderers advanced on me I staggered and fell. I felt thesword-point enter my neck; I saw the dagger gleam over the child in myarms; I heard the death-shriek of the last victim above; and then mysenses failed me, and I could listen and move no more!

  'Long must I have lain motionless at the foot of those fatal stairs;for when I awoke from my trance the noises in the city were hushed, andfrom her place in the firmament the moon shone softly into the desertedhouse. I listened, to be certain that I was alone with my murderedchildren. No sound was in the dwelling; the assassins had departed,believing that their labour of blood was ended when I fell beneaththeir swords; and I was able to crawl forth in security, and to look mylast upon my offspring that the Romans had slain. The child that Iheld to my breast still breathed. I stanched with some fragments of mygarment the wounds that he had received, and laying him gently by thestairs--in the moonlight, so that I might see him when he moved--Igroped in the shadow of the wall for my first murdered and my lastborn; for that youngest and fairest one of my offspring whom they hadslaughtered before my eyes! When I touched the corpse, it was wet withblood; I felt its face, and it was cold beneath my hands; I raised itsbody in my arms, and its limbs already were rigid in death! Then Ithought of the eldest child, who lay dead in the chamber above. But mystrength was failing me fast. I had an infant who might yet bepreserved; and I knew that if morning dawned on me in the house, allchances of escape were lost for ever. So, though my heart was coldwithin me at leaving my child's corpse to the mercy of the Romans, Itook up the dead and the wounded one in my arms, and went forth intothe garden, and thence towards the seaward quarter of the town.

  'I passed through the forsaken streets. Sometimes I stumbled againstthe body of a child--sometimes the moonlight showed me the death-paleface of some woman of my nation whom I had loved, stretched upward tothe sky; but I still advanced until I gained the wall of the town, andheard on the other side the waters of the river running onward to thePort of Aquileia and the sea.

  'I looked around. The gates I knew were guarded and closed. By thewall was the only prospect of escape; but its top was high and itssides were smooth when I felt them with my hands. Despairing andwearied, I laid my burdens down where they were hidden by the shade,and walked forward a few paces, for to remain still was a torment thatI could not endure. At a short distance I saw a soldier sleepingagainst the wall of a house. By his side was a ladder placed againstthe window. As I looked up I beheld the head of a corpse resting onits top. The victim must have been lately slain, for her blood stilldripped slowly down into an empty wine-pot that stood within thesoldier's reach. When I saw the ladder, hope revived within me. Iremoved it to the wall--I mounted, and laid my dead child on the greatstones at its top--I returned, and placed my wounded boy by the corpse.Slowly, and with many efforts, I dragged the ladder upwards, until fromits own weight one end fell to the ground on the other side. As I hadrisen so I descended. In the sand of the river-bank I scraped a hole,and buried there the corpse of the infant; for I could carry the weightof two no longer. Then with my wounded child I reached some cavernsthat lay onward near the seashore. There throughout the next day I layhidden--alone with my sufferings of body and my affliction ofheart--until the night came on, when I set forth on my journey to themountains; for I knew that at AEmona, in the camp of the warriors of mypeople, lay the only refuge that was left to me on earth. Feebly andslowly, hiding by day and travelling by night, I kept on my way until Igained that lake among the rocks, where the guards of the army cameforward and rescued me from death.'

  She ceased. Throughout the latter portion of her narrative herdemeanour had been calm and sad; and as she dwelt, with the painfulindustry of grief, over each minute circumstance connected with thebereavements she had sustained, her voice softened to those accents ofquiet mournfulness, which make impressive the most simple words, andrender musical the most unsteady tones. It seemed as if those tendererand kinder emotions, which the attractions of her offspring had oncegenerated in her character, had at the bidding of memory becomerevivified in her manner while she lingered over the recital of theirdeaths. For a brief space of time she looked fixedly and anxiouslyupon the countenance of Hermanric, which was half averted from her, andexpressed a fierce and revengeful gloom that sat unnaturally on itnoble lineaments. Then turning from him, she buried her face in herhands, and made no effort more to attract him to attention or incitehim to reply.

  This solemn silence kept by the bereaved woman and the brooding man hadlasted but a few minutes, when a harsh, trembling voice was heard fromthe top of the waggon, calling at intervals, 'Hermanric! Hermanric!'

  At first the young man remained unmoved by those discordant andrepulsive tones. They repeated his name, however, so often and soperseveringly, that he noticed them ere long; and rising suddenly, asif impatient of the interruption, advanced towards the side of thewaggon from which the mysterious summons appeared to come.

  As he looked up towards the vehicle the voice ceased, and he saw thatthe old woman to whom he had confided the child was the person who hadcalled him so hurriedly but a few moments before. Her tottering body,clothed in bear-skins, was bent forward over a large triangular shieldof polished brass, on which she leant her lank, shrivelled arms. Herhead shook with a tremulous, palsied action; a leer, half smile, halfgrimace, distended her withered lips and lightened her sunken eyes.Sinister, cringing, repulsive; her face livid with the reflection fromthe weapon that was her support, and her figure scarcely human in therugged garments that encompassed its gaunt proportions, she seemed adeformity set up by evil spirits to mock the majesty of the humanform--an embodied satire on all that is most deplorable in infirmityand most disgusting in age.

  The instant she discerned Hermanric, she stretched her body out stillfarther over the shield; and pointing to the interior of the waggon,muttered softly that one fearful and expressive word--dead!

  Without waiting for any further explanation, the young Goth mounted thevehicle, and gaining the old woman's side, saw stretched on hercollection of herbs--beautiful in the sublime and melancholy stillnessof death--the corpse of Goisvintha's last child.

  'Is Hermanric wroth?' whined the hag, quailing before the steady,rebuking glance of the young man. 'When I said that Brunechild wasgreater than Hermanric, I lied. It is Hermanric that is most powerful!See, the dressings were placed on the wounds; and, though the child hasdied, shall not the treasures that were promised me be mine? I havedone what I could, but my cunning begins to desert me, for I amold--old--old! I have seen my generation pass away! Aha! I am old,Hermanric, I am old!'

  When the young warrior looked on the child, he saw that the hag hadspoken truth, and that the victim had died from no fault of hers. Paleand serene, the countenance of the boy showed how tranqu
il had been hisdeath. The dressings had been skilfully composed and carefully appliedto his wounds, but suffering and privation had annihilated thefeebleness of human resistance in their march toward the last dreadgoal, and the treachery of Imperial Rome had once more triumphed as wasits wont, and triumphed over a child!

  As Hermanric descended with the corpse Goisvintha was the first objectthat met his eyes when he alighted on the ground. The mother receivedfrom him the lifeless burden without an exclamation or a tear. Thatemanation from her former and kinder self which had been produced bythe closing recital of her sufferings was henceforth, at the signal ofher last child's death, extinguished in her for ever!

  'His wounds had crippled him,' said the young man gloomily. 'He couldnever have fought with the warriors! Our ancestors slew themselveswhen they were no longer vigorous for the fight. It is better that hehas died!'

  'Vengeance!' gasped Goisvintha, pressing up closely to his side. 'Wewill have vengeance for the massacre of Aquileia! When blood isstreaming in the palaces of Rome, remember my murdered children, andhasten not to sheathe thy sword!'

  At this instant, as if to rouse still further the fierce determinationthat appeared already in the face of the young Goth, the voice ofAlaric was heard commanding the army to advance. Hermanric started, anddrew the panting woman after him to the resting-place of the king.There, armed at all points, and rising, by his superior stature, highabove the throng around him, stood the dreaded captain of the Gothichosts. His helmet was raised so as to display his clear blue eyesgleaming over the multitude around him; he pointed with his sword inthe direction of Italy; and as rank by rank the men started to theirarms, and prepared exultingly for the march, his lips parted with asmile of triumph, and ere he moved to accompany them he spoke thus:--

  'Warriors of the Goths, our halt is a short one among the mountains;but let not the weary repine, for the glorious resting-place thatawaits our labours is the city of Rome! The curse of Odin, when in theinfancy of our nation he retired before the myriads of the Empire, itis our privilege to fulfil! That future destruction which he denouncedagainst Rome, it is ours to effect! Remember your hostages that theRomans have slain; your possessions that the Romans have seized; yourtrust that the Romans have betrayed! Remember that I, your king, havewithin me that supernatural impulse which never deceives, and whichcalls to me in a voice of encouragement--Advance, and the Empire isthine! Assemble the warriors, and the City of the World shall bedelivered to the conquering Goths! Let us onward without delay! Ourprey awaits us! Our triumph is near! Our vengeance is at hand!'

  He paused; and at that moment the trumpet gave signal for the march.

  'Up! up!' cried Hermanric, seizing Goisvintha by the arm, and pointingto the waggon which had already begun to move; 'make ready for thejourney! I will charge myself with the burial of the child. Yet a fewdays and our encampment may be before Aquileia. Be patient, and I willavenge thee in the palaces of Rome!'

  The mighty mass moved. The multitude stretched forth over the barrenground; and even now the warriors in front of the army might be seen bythose in the rear mounting the last range of passes that lay betweenthe plains of Italy and the Goths.